Red Velvet Cupcakes Recipe

And so the first real post begins...

I made these cupcakes in February for a lunch with some family friends. I was allocated pudding making, and really did not know what to do.
As Valentine's Day had just been, and the fact that I'd never made them before but really wanted to try, I decided to make Red Velvet cupcakes.
Most recipes suggest to use cream cheese icing, but I thought 'yuck' and decided to use my favourite vanilla buttercream icing instead, and it tasted delicious.
Not to compliment myself too much, but they were really lovely and light, and I was very proud of them.
This recipe makes 12, so I doubled it and now had lots of yummy cupcakes left over for midnight snacks!
It is based on a HummingBird Bakery recipe, but I made a few changes to make them my own
So here it is:

(Oh and before I begin, incase anyone is a beginner, TSP = teaspoon, TBSP = tablespoon)

Ingredients 

Cupcake Mixture:

• 60g butter (if unsalted, add 1/2 tsp salt when adding vinegar and bicarbonate of soda)
• 150g caster sugar
• 2 eggs 
• 10g cocoa powder
• Red food dye - about 20ml but you can choose how deep a red you want
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I like to add just a few big drops instead of measuring)
• 120ml buttermilk - Nigella was my saviour here as I had no idea what it was! http://www.nigella.com/kitchen-queries/view/Buttermilk-subsitute/450
• 150g plain flour
• 1/2 bicarbonate of soda
• 1 and 1/2 white wine vinegar
• white chocolate (my twist)

Vanilla Icing:

• 250g sifted icing sugar
• 80g unsalted butter
• 25ml whole milk
• a couple of drops of vanilla extract

Method

Cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 170°c / 325°F / gas mark 3

2. Put the room temperature butter and sugar into a mixer with paddle attachment (or a hand-held whisk) and beat on medium speed until light, fluffy and well mixed. Turn the mixture up to high speed and slowly add the eggs until everything is well mixed together.

3. In a seperate bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, red food colouring and vanilla extract to make a thick, dark paste. Add to butter mixture and mix throughly until it is all evenly coloured. Turn the mixer down to slow speed and slowly pour in half the buttermilk, beat until well mixed. Then slowly add half the flour and beat until well mixed. Repeat this with the other halves. Speed up mixer till you have a smooth, even mixture, but don't over beat and curdle (split) the mixture, otherwise you won't have lovely, light and fluffy cupcakes. Turn mixer down to slow and add the bicarbonate of soda and vinegar (and salt if using unsalted butter), beat until well mixed. 

4. Spoon into cupcake cases, and add a small block of white chocolate into the middle. Put in oven for 20-25 mins, or until the sponge bounces back when you touch it, or when a skewer is put in the middle and comes out clean with no crumbs on it. Leave to cool completely before adding icing.

Vanilla Icing:

You can easily make this whilst the cupcakes are baking, and then pipe or dollop on the top of the cooled cupcakes. You could add food colouring to this mixture to make it a bit more colourful, but I wanted to stick with red and white.

1. Put the icing sugar and room temperature butter into a mixer with the paddle or whisk attachment (or, again, a hand-held whisk) and beat on a medium-slow speed until the mixture comes together.

2. In a seperate bowl, add the milk and vanilla extract together. Turn the mixter down to a slow speed and add the vanilla-milk mixture to it a couple of tablespoons at a time. Once all the milk has been mixture in, turn the mixture up to a high speed.

3. Continue beating until the icing (or frosting is a more appropiate word for it) is light and fluffy, for at least 5 minutes. The longer it is beaten, the lighter it becomes. 

You can choose how to apply the 'frosting', I piped mine on using a piping bag and add red and white stars to keep them simple and classy, but of course you could go crazy and make them multi-coloured!

I'm not the best at piping but they turned out alright! 

I hope you all find this recipe useful, of course you will probably change it to suit you, I just liked having the chocolate hidden in there! 

MaddyBea x